The invention is directed to a structural component for transmitting torque between two shafts with the shaft axes being disposed angularly relative to one another, such as for a safety steering mechanism with a bent steering column.
In a front end motor vehicle collision to avoid that the rigid steering column is driven into the driver's space, it has been the practice to utilize steering columns which are doubly bent and provided with universal joints at the bent sections. Such safety steering columns involve a complicated and expensive design.
In another type of safety steering column used in actual practice, a portion of the steering column is designed as a lattice-like sleeve which compresses or shortens in the case of a front end collision when a predetermined force has been exceeded. The lattice-shaped sleeve can be formed as a member wound from a fiber-reinforced plastics material provided with lattice bars made up of layers of plastics material impregnated with fiber strands wound in a crossing pattern, German Patent document No. 30 45 141-C2. The angle of the lattice rods with respect to the axis of the wound member is preferably in the range of 45.degree. to 55.degree. since the intended purpose is to achieve a smaller axial strength than a small bending stiffness.
Accordingly, the known lattice-shaped sleeve is relatively stiff in bending and is able to compensate for angular deviations merely within the range of the fabrication tolerances.